I was upgraded by my ISP to a 2.5Gb service recently. However, my current bottleneck will be the Router (Asus RT-AX88U) and the NAS (QNAP TS-421 - yes it's very old lol). My PC has a 10Gb NIC courtesy of the Rampage Vi Extreme but I also have a spare TP-Link TX401 NIC lying around which I have not used yet.
I know the easiest solution is to replace the router, but all of the newer models (the ones I'm looking at) are difficult to find in stock at the moment.
I was attempting a temporary solution whereby I use an Asus QG-U1050 unmanaged switch. I connected the switch to the 2.5Gb port on the gateway modem and then one port on the switch to my PC. (which I have confirmed gives me the 2.5Gb speed).
I then connect my router to another port on the switch which I have confirmed to still provide internet service via wifi.
My issue is the NAS that I am not able to connect to any longer either via Qfinder Pro or Windows Explorer. I need to be able to access the NAS drives via PC and the various streaming devices in the house. Everything works fine if all connected via the router but the switch seems to cause issues. Windows gives me error messages while trying to map the drives such as "invalid gateway" or something to that effect and "can't connect to network drive as it's already in use or missing credentials".
I'm a hardware person and an idiot when it comes to anything more than basic networking skills (at least I can create my own Cat 6 cables lol) so I'm looking for some suggestions here.
My current setup is fairly old and requires updating but it has worked well for me all these years. I've given up trying to replace the router for the time being until I can find what I want so I was hoping I could make this temporary solution work for me.